International Law

International Shipping Terms Glossary

By Fred Rocafort

Every community has its lingo, and the international trade community is no exception.  Lawyers who work on international matters have a good chance of running across some of that lingo, even if they are not working on a trade matter as such. In fact, in my experience, it’s rare for international contract work not to at least touch upon trade aspects.

With that in mind, we’d like to share a great resource we stumbled upon: a shipping glossary provided by container shipping and logistics service OOCL. This glossary is both extensive and user friendly.

The following are some of the terms in the glossary that have recently come up in the course of our work involving non-trade specialists:

• Also Notify Party
• Bonded Warehouse
• C-TPAT/CTPAT
• Certificate of Origin
• Controlled Atmosphere (CA)

The glossary is also a handy guide for the most common Incoterms.

In a pinch, it might even serve as the basis of an informative trivia game for your next virtual happy hour.

Full post as published by China Law Blog on September 27, 2020 (boomark / email).